Contributions
The Reader Reports
The articles appearing on thesepages were contributed by readersin response to the theme question:
What do you consider the greatestthreat to our political freedomtoday?
Holding the Franchise
The right to vote is a personal gift toevery one of us as we reach the ageoftwenty- one, and is an exclusive right offranchise that can be exercised onlyby the holder. The greatest threat toour political freedom today is the factthat the citizen does not look upon thisgreat franchise of his with appreciationand the will of preservation. It is oursby right of birth in the United States ,and it is free for our use to better ourway of living- yet only one- third ofthe registered voters of the United States exercise their right to vote.
If a bus line with a franchise to oper-ate in your neighborhood refused torun on schedule, and stopped at anycorner it saw fit, at any time it saw fit,every individual in the area would beclamoring to have the franchise re-moved from that particular company.And so it is with our right to vote- ifwe fail to exercise it, eventually thatright might be removed from us by agroup or groups interested in their self-aggrandizement.
The American people talk veryloudly about their rights, but do verylittle toward maintaining them.
The Man Who's RightThe greatest threat to our politicalfreedom today, and every day, is theman who, frightened by the responsi-bilities of liberty, strikes the word fromhis copy of the dictionary and intends
to see to it that all others do the same.He is the man who, inherently fearfulof the competition to be met in the freemarket place of ideas, desires only toeliminate that competition.
A louder voice, a bigger chest, atechnique of smear or blackmail, coer-cion, intimidation, misrepresentation,he considers legitimate weapons withwhich to eliminate all that he considersdangerous to the perpetuation of hisown ideas. His name is Bugsy Siegel orFather Coughlin , Stalin or Hitler ,Rankin or Dennis; he is a GrandKleagle or a neighbohood bully, theman at the next desk who knows it all,or a pontificating radio expert. He is,in fine, the man who is right.
There is no worse threat to our free-doms today than the man who is right.Democracy is that system of livingwhich allows the greatest elbow roomfor the greatest number within theframework of a society kept perpetu-ally flexible by the knowledge that itmay be wrong. The man who is rightand who, being right, logically would
eliminate what, in his righteousness, hebelieves wrong, is the enemy alwaysand everywhere of flexibility, change,compromise. He boxes a little portionof the free ether of idea and calls it thewhole world. He is totalitarian in thesense that he calls the part the whole;his totalitarianism consists in mistak-ing( and defending his mistake to thegreat cost of others) the fragment forthe total fabric.
In a most thoughtful and illuminat-ing article in a recent issue of The Re-porter, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. definesthe man who is right, the congenitalenemy of all synthesis, of free ex-change, of compromise. He is a sickman , a man sickened by the pressuresof choice, the man who has failed tolive up to the moral exigencies of liv-ing. The small section of the whole thathas offered him the security of dogma,the comfort of numbers, the fortress ofinfallible and predigested opinion, elic-its his most complete loyalty. Withother sick men, then, he marches torighteous battle against the well men,who, because they are well, have neverfound it necessary to be right.
Negative Goal
The greatest threat to our politicalfreedom today is a morbid fear ofCommunism that appears to paralyzethe democratic spirit.
Democracy flourished while its ad-
Instructions to Reader Contributors
Theme:" How long do you think it will take Germany to be-come a useful member of the community of nations?"
1. All contributors should state the question to which the letter is in answer.
2. Letters should not exceed four hundred words.
3. Contributors are asked to print name, address, and occupation.
4. Contributions should be addressed to Reader Contributions, The Reporter,220 East 42 Street, New York 17, New York .
5. Contributions to be printed will be selected by The Editors.
6. Each contributor whose letter is printed will receive a check for$ 25.00.
7. All contributions, whether printed or not, will become the property of TheReporter.
8. All contributions on this issue's question must be postmarked not later thanOctober 18, 1949.
Reader contributors are asked to follow instructions carefully in order toavoid confusion between contributions on the theme- question and regularLetters to the Editor .
The Reporter, October 11, 1949
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